Listen!

Good news! Now you can read The New Yorker in the dark. Sort of a sexy scenario, actually.

Digital Audio Edition of The New Yorker Now Available from Audible; Audible Provides Exclusive Subscriptions to the Digital Audio Version of the Legendary Magazine at www.audible.com/newyorker

WAYNE, N.J. & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 28, 2005--Audible, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBL, www.audible.com), the leader in spoken audio information and entertainment on the Internet, and The New Yorker magazine today announced an exclusive agreement that brings The New Yorker's award-winning reporting, commentary, criticism, and fiction into the world of downloadable digital audio.

Every Wednesday Audible exclusively delivers select articles from The Talk of the Town, Fiction, Critics, and other sections of the magazine to Audible's hundreds of thousands of digital audio listeners. Each article is read in its entirety and selected in collaboration with the editorial staff of The New Yorker.

In addition, Audible will become the exclusive digital audio provider of "The New Yorker Festival"—an annual celebration of arts and ideas—which features an eclectic lineup of discussions, talks, and readings with some of today's most gifted and provocative writers, artists, filmmakers, musicians, and politicians.

"The New Yorker is not only one of our culture's richest sources of literature and profound discourse on issues of the day, it is a true American icon. We couldn't be more pleased to translate this thought-provoking content into the digital audio experience," said Beth Anderson, senior vice president and publisher of Audible, Inc. "And with our recent launch of RSS delivery, our listeners are now able to bring this extraordinary audio into their lives seamlessly."

"We are very excited to be working with Audible to bring millions of loyal readers a new way to experience The New Yorker," said Pamela Maffei McCarthy, Deputy Editor, The New Yorker. "And the partnership between the magazine and Audible will allow us to reach out to a new group of potential subscribers."

From Audible's website: "The site offers a powerful collection of audiobook best sellers and classics by authors such as Tom Clancy, Stephen King, John Grisham, Janet Evanovich, James Patterson, the Dalai Lama, David McCullough, Stephen Hawking, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Austen." Hmm...that might not be the order I would use. A one-month subscription costs $12.95. Shame it arrives Wednesday, though at the current circulation speed that's only one day behind Brooklyn. (I hear Brooklyn Heights gets special Monday treatment; figures.)

Update: I'm listening to it now (I bought the June 27 issue for cheap), and it's a painless procedure. I recommend not using the 6 MB "AM radio" size; it sounds like AM radio after the radio has been dropped a couple of times and placed in the closet. But it's not at all bad if you want that old-time radio feeling, as I often do. 11 MB is much crisper. I could swear it's a young Rick Dees doing the introduction to the issue contents. Comforting! Then he becomes NPR-ish Voiceover Guy (no ladies for the lady pieces?), with friendly Elevated or Classical American Diction of which David Alan Stern would no doubt approve, but I think he's from the South somewhere. He says phrases like "bong hits" and "big gummint" (Hendrik Hertzberg's Talk about medical marijuana) and "pissed" and "get the hots" (Anthony Lane's doggerel in his review of Yes) with admirable gentility. Our voice man seems to relish "simulacra," "wargasm," and "usurpation." You know, I've done this stuff (for the blind, following my far more disciplined late grandmother's example), and it's damn hard. Very nice end Ts.

After the official program is over, the old song (in really old-time audio) "Caught Us Doin' It" by The Hokum Boys begins! But don't worry, it's just iTunes, being alphabetical; it's what comes after Hertzberg (who's listed first as "Artist" on the download), after all. That Holiday's dreamy cover of the Go-Gos' "Vacation" is just after, followed by "We Like Bananas, Because They Have No Bones" (that's the Hoosier Hot Shots, as you know), is one of those many happy iTunes moments. Sure, I don't really need New Yorker audio. But it's good that it exists, and it would have come in handy when I was a temporary pirate.

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